Bike to School Week 2019

Bike to School Week 2019

You may or may not have known about these events, though millions do and a fair number celebrate or mark the occasions in some way.

Our Bike to School Week is a time for inspiration – we hope it has helped pupils, parents and teachers across the UK kick-start active travel habits and switch to cycling, scooting or walking for the school journey.

We believe, however, that at all the schools we work with, every week is a bike week.

That’s why our guide to planning Bike to School Week is aimed at those not yet receiving support from one of our officers and includes a six-week planner to ensure a successful event. It’s also why we see Bike to School Week as something to be run at any time. That could be once a year, once a term, every month or whatever a school can manage.

When schools and parents see not just how much pupils want to cycle and how much they love it, but also how easy it can be, it builds the sort of momentum that in a generation might get us closer to the cycling rates we’ve seen in the past – or that places such as Denmark have now.

It goes without saying that investment in cycling and walking infrastructure is absolutely crucial if we are to see this kind of change.

Policy- makers have begun to recognise this and we have seen promising progress, most recently with the publication of England’s first ever Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy. The challenge now, of course, is to deliver change where it matters: on the ground.

The numbers speak for themselves

More than half a million pupils from nearly 1,700 UK schools registered to take part in our Big Pedal event, which took place in March.

During the 10-day challenge participants travelled almost three million miles by bike and scooter – that’s nearly 119 trips around the world – and saved almost 728 tonnes, or nearly 55 million balloons-worth, of CO2 being emitted by cars.

Nearly 55 million calories (the equivalent of almost 227,000 donuts) were burned and with more than 75,000 gallons of fuel not being used on the school run, parents also saved over £400,000 on petrol.